Well I’m beginning to wonder now if I should not have bothered trying to get the key to Arcatraz, I could just join a group that has a member who has the key to let me in. But hey, it’s part of the lead up to Karazhan so Blizzard must want me to do it for some reason?
To get the key you need to collect the two halves from the final bosses in Mechanar and Botanica.
It seemed to take about 2 hours to get a group together, then it took another half an hour or more before we managed to get a clear shot at summoning, a group of Alliance were camping the summoning stone! It’s worth noting that as a warlock I can normally summon other party members but this is not allowed in Netherstorm.
Once we were all in we must have wiped about 4 times in the first 20 mins or so, we eventually managed to get the first boss down and then 2 of the group decided they just had to leave. After that we agreed there was no point trying to get any more members onboard to complete. I had a look later in the evening to see if I could get enough members but it was not going to happen
I hadn’t really looked at what was involved with the third Karazkan key fragment, apart form knowing that you get it at the end of Arcatraz instance in Tempest Keep. However to be able to move in and out of the Arcatraz you need the key to it’s doors. Only one party member actually needs it but I thought I’d see what was involved in obtaining the key and maybe give it a shot.
The questline for the Arcatraz key starts with a three pre-quests at Area 52, once these are done you can move on to the next quest line. The whole line up looks something like this:
They are mostly just collection quests and move here, report there type of quests which show you the areas of Netherstorm. Many of the areas I had not been to before and I picked up the two remaining Horde flight paths in Netherstorm. Using my flying mount to get about was great, it saved a lot of time and I was able to get down to step 7 above in about 1.5 hours. Guess what, I bumped in to Cowdy yet again, doing the same quests, we killed the 70 elite together in Full Triangle.
So now I need to get in a group and complete both Mechanar and The Botanica. Both these are in the ‘floating’ Tempest Keep fortress in Netherstorm. Once I have both the top shard and bottom shard of the Arcatraz Key, I will then be able to go there and hopefully get the final key fragment for access to Karazhan.
I hadn’t logged in last night with the intention of going out for the second Karazhan key fragment, it was getting late and I didn’t think I would have time to find a group doing The Steam Vaults instance and get the key.
I realised that you only have to clear as far as the first boss in order to drop down in to the small pool below to find the second arcane container, which the key fragment is held in.
By chance I saw Cowdy (see post below) shouting out for a DPS for Steamvaults, I asked him if he was only going as far as the first boss and he said no, but said it would only take about 1 hour to do the complete instance, well at least to get to the final boss anyway.
I accepted and was soon summoned in to the area below the Coilfang Reservoir in Zangermarsh where the instance begins. It was certainly a fast and furious run, we had the first boss down and the key fragment secured in less than 15 mins. Another 30 mins saw us down the final boss and I was able complete the quest The Warlord’s Hideout, which I had picked up on the way in. The reward was good, [Hydromancer's Headwrap], along with the second key fragment for about 45 mins work, I don’t think was too bad.
I need to start saving some more to put some decent gems in all this socket’able gear I am collecting!
Well, later on Sunday afternoon I decided to look for a group for Entry Into Karazhan quest, which takes you in to Shadow Labyrinth. You have to kill the last boss in order to get the first of the 3 key fragments from the Arcane Container it has been sealed in! We managed to get a good group and had the whole place cleared in about an hour. The group consisted of 2 x shadow priest, 1 x holy priest, myself - warlock and Cowdy (whom I seem to keep bumping in to) our protection geared tank.
Besides the key I managed to get a couple of items of nice gear for Dirky. I got the [Robe of Oblivion] which drops of the final boss - Murmur, who I must say is absolutely huge!
I’d also picked up the quest on the way in to Shadow Labyrinth - Trouble at Auchindoun which leads you on to kill Murmur. Once you turn this quest chain in back in Shattrath City you get a choice of several boots for each class, I chose [Shattrath Jumpers].
All in all a good days work
Well I thought it was about time I started to think about doing the pre-quests for entry in to Karazhan. The first quests are picked up right outside the entrance to Karazhan, which is found down a short path just off Deadwind Pass. Nearest flight path for Horde is Stonard & Alliance is Darkshire.
Once there I picked up the 2 available quests, Arcane Disturbances and Restless Activity . I managed the Restless Activity one without too much bother, you basically go in to one of the cellars, discover some water and kill the mobs picking up 10 of the required [Ghostly Essence] as you go.
Arcane Disturbances was far more testing though. Not helped by a few Alliance in the area either. After a couple of runs I decided to use the ‘corpse run’ method. I took off all my gear so to avoid damage and repair costs. Got my friendly voidwalker out and made a run for it, I got fairly far down before my health got low, sacrificed my poor voidwalker and got a good bit further. Once I died I then made a corpse or ghost run to my body where I resurected and ran a bit further, I had a healthstone at the ready and almost got to the well.
One final run and I made it. I won’t bore you with the procedure to get out again!
I then turned both quests in and got the next quest Contact from Dalaran. This starts the chain proper where you now have to get the three key fragments from separate instances. These fragments when combined make up the key to Karazhan.
I managed the first couple of parts of the quest easily, apart from when I landed at Tarren Mill I was immediately ganked by about 10 Alliance doing a raid!
Now I have reached level 70 and achieved the top level in the game, it might seem that there is no more to do? Well that’s absolute rubbish of course! There is probably more to do when you get to 70 than before. There are all the huge raid’s and instances, Arena teams not to mention many quests and reputation grinding to get extra gear and recipes. Oh yes and the small matter of being able to fly around the skys of The Outlands.
To do this you need a special flying mount, these come in the standard 60% speed variety and the supercharged 280% deluxe type. The 280% speed mount was way out of my price range at present so I opted for the 60% one - [Blue Windrider].
Still I nearly became bankrupt buying it, I had to ‘borrow’ a fair bit from my other accounts and characters to scrape together the 800g for the training and 100g for the actual mount. Once I had the mount, the first thing I used it for was to complete the penultimate part of the quest chain in order to receive the [Evoker's Helmet of Second Sight]. Basically you have to fly to the top of a very tall mountain peak with your other 4 party members and defeat a huge dragon which circles the area. We had a good group and did it first attempt! I then went to Shatterath and did some of the Skyguard quests which are also inaccessable without a flying mount.It’s worth noting that in order to complete the pre-quests for Karazhan and obtain all your key fragments, you also need a flying mount in order to get up to Tempest Keep.
Well, finally I did it, I reached the upper limit of available levels in World of Warcraft, at least until the next expansion! I did 2 runs of Caverns of Time -Durnholde, each which gave me about 3.5 bars of rested XP and then finished off the quest for Evoker’s Helmet of Second Sight in Shadowmoon Valley, which I’ve since socket-ed with 2 x [Glowing Nightseye] to give me an extra total 10 spell damage and 12 stamina. I’ve not filled the yellow socket as I was getting low on gold, especially as I wanted to get my flying mount, see next post!
Anyway I was about 7000 XP off reaching 70 late on Friday evening so I thought I’d wait until the morning before I turned in another quest and ‘dinged 70′ - so the kids could see, I knew they would be grumpy if they could not share the experience!
So at about 09:00 on Saturday morning I turned in the quest! I also managed to use the inbuilt WoW video capture to make a short film of it, which I have posted on Youtube.com, see here.
So there we go, I guess the game is over?!……… or is it
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